Due to the constant need to be able to communicate with various co-workers at any time, many businesses currently resort to the use of computer systems for internal communications. Such computer systems provide directory services, internal mail/message services, and calendars or daily, weekly or monthly schedules for each individual.
One computer service associated with the computerized personal calendars especially aids in the scheduling of meetings which require the attendance of invitees with very different schedules. Typically the computer calendar scheduling service allows a user to request a meeting of a specified duration to be held within a range of times and dates, and to include a group of specified people. A comparison is made within the computer of the specified times and dates with each prospective attendee's calendar of events. The results of the comparison is an option list from which the user selects an available meeting time that is common to all prospective attendees. One such computer calendar scheduling service is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,836.